


The Marukan Plains

by Tikor



Category: Exalted
Genre: Fanfiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7429099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tikor/pseuds/Tikor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story hook set in the Marukan Plains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Marukan Plains

South of the city of Lookshy, North of the city of Thorns and along the coast of the Inner  
Sea lie the plains and fields of the Marukan. Horselore is the measure of a woman from Marukan, where horse whisperers are as lauded as shamen and every young couple honeymoons on horseback. The Marukan are a people but they are not a nation, nor a city, though they do have a capital in Celeren. Authority only goes up so far as the leading family (and sometimes the only family) of the fortified ranches that are about a day's slow ride from one another. The common defense is organized by likeminded individuals who have pledged militia in the case of external threat to themselves or their neighbors, with very few constant warriors paid by the generosity of Celeren to organize and 'lead' them. 

Riding between these ranches with news, letters, songs, and the fair hand of the law are the circuit riders. They hail from every ranch in Marukan and serve as a check against the petty ambitions of the matriarchs and patriarchs of Marukan's pockets of civilization. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see things right, and the Marukan are the first to admit it. The Marukan always greet the circuit riders with well wishes, for it is common knowledge that those who don't have something to hide. Most stories and songs of the Marukan feature a circuit rider, her horse and the adventures they have together. 

Every year the Marukan hold the Spring Market in Celeren once the coolness of Descending Air has let up enough to travel. They love to barter horses and other goods (but mostly horses) and buyers from all over the Confederacy of Rivers come for yearlings to have as breeding stock for their own stables. Once, the proud city of Thorns would send extravagant caravans to the Spring Market. The wealthiest of the Thornaki were known to buy the entire stock of horses from some impressive and lucky breeder. Those breeders might use the proceeds to start her own ranch, and so the plains would expand and fill in any abandoned ranches. Now, no Thornaki visit the Spring Market. Talk often circles to the dead neighbors to the South, and how several Southern households didn't bring anything to market for the last few years running.

The Marukan have an extension of their mail system running the entire River Province and those adjacent areas that can be traversed by small boat and horse, such as the Inner Sea coasts of the Northern and Southern Threshold. The Marukan whose ranches have pledged a circuit rider may send messages within Maruk for a small fee, but the extended network is considerably more expensive. 

It is one such letter opened by the small hand of a simple soul that caused all of the trouble.


End file.
